It’s an ending that seemed inconceivable on Opening Day.  Fans were optimistic, sure, but the pitching staff was young and unproven, and the offense was full of question marks.  It seems like years ago that Ryan Braun started the first game of the season at first base.  In the six-plus months since, Yelich became the likely MVP, Josh Hader became a dominant relief ace, and Braun rediscovered his old form.

Sports are weird.  The connections they inspire are somewhat arbitrary, as fans attach themselves to athletes who play for a team that happens to be in the same city they live in.  One of the main storylines on the national broadcast was the Brewers’ connection to Southern California and how Yelich and Braun grew up as Dodgers fans.  The fact that they were trying to beat their childhood team, and disappoint the thousands of fans in the stadium with whom they had a lot in common, is slightly odd.  It is, of course, a coincidence of fandom and how people interact with their local institutions.

Keeping these connections in context is important.  Friendly rivalries are fun and good, and Brewers fans will always have a healthy dislike for the Cubs and Cardinals, and the members of those fanbases as well.  But fans of the Brewers have more in common with fans of the Cubs than they do with the actual players on the Brewers, who, generally, will not maintain a connection with the city of Milwaukee once their time with the club ends.  Fans, though, will continue to root for the next generations of Brewers.  Cubs fans will act the same way.

Sports teams are valuable civic institutions that provide a unifying point for otherwise-disparate communities.  As Nicholas Zettel wrote earlier this season, “Milwaukee is a deeply segregated city.”  People in different parts of the city do not have the same lives, but shared sports memories bind people together.  The Brewers are a communal experience that anyone in the city can be a part of, and that is important.  Civic pride is a valuable resource that sports teams can help build.

What we should not lose sight of, however, are the limits of what sports can provide.  Sports are an escape for some people—an opportunity to immerse oneself in an important but ultimately consequence-free athletic competition.  For other people, though, sports are anything but an escape; instead, they are a manifestation or reminder of how they are viewed.  A city suffering from significant income inequality may spend hundreds of millions of unplanned dollars on a baseball stadium rather than allocating it to organizations designed to help people improve their lives.  One of baseball’s oldest and most revered stadiums may be built on top of houses that were vacated only when city authorities forcibly dragged people from their homes.

This site has not shied away from addressing these concerns.  On its very first day, Jack Moore explained how Miller Park continues to cost taxpayers millions of dollars.  Earlier this season, Nicholas Zettel wrote the aforementioned analysis of Milwaukee’s housing segregation.  Last offseason, I discussed the impact of professional athletes’ public statements.  There are also many other examples of us covering off-field issues, and I point this out not to be self-congratulatory but instead to reinforce the importance of proper context.

Sports are supposed to be entertainment.  We invest ourselves in people who wear our city’s name on their shirt, and in some circumstances, our happiness depends on how they perform on the field.  That is good and normal, as we should build connections with those things that matter to us.  For example, Brewers fans should care about how the Brewers do, and hating the Cubs is perfectly normal given the animus between the two teams and cities; these connections help us enjoy the game even more.  Rivalries help bring additional meaning to certain games throughout the year, which certainly enhances the season’s entertainment value and piques fan interest at otherwise dull parts of the year.

This season was fun.  It should not be less fun just because the Brewers did not win the World Series, nor if this is ultimately the closest this iteration of the franchise comes to a championship.  There are a lot of great memories from this year, and there is likely to be another one when Yelich wins the MVP award.  After July 12, the Brewers did not have sole possession of first place in the NL Central until after Game 163.  They were 2.5 games behind the Cubs with a week to go, and they overcame that deficit to win the division.  They won a winner-take-all game against the Cubs that determined home-field advantage throughout the National League playoffs.  Those games all happened, as did all the other moments throughout the summer that you enjoyed watching, whether it was Jesus Aguilar’s unlikely All Star Game selection, Freddy Peralta’s wonderful debut on Mother’s Day, the wild fifteenth inning walk-off against the Pirates that featured Jordan Lyles drawing a walk, or any other game that you may have positive memories with.  Those games are all a part of the experience of being a fan.

Sports are a focal point for communities, and they link generations.  They are a place for kids to learn, grow, and develop into adults, and those same people then pass that experience on to their children or friends.  People may watch games with their family, friends, neighbors, or by themselves.  Everyone’s relationship with their team is different, but each individual story contributes to the team’s importance to its community.  Those communities, though, go beyond sports.  The choices people make about their teams’ relationship with the community impacts more than just on-field performance; and while we remember this most vividly when issues such as public funding are making headlines, it is always true.

Sports inform our relationships with our cities and neighbors, and they create bonds between people who may not otherwise have any or reinforce them between people who are already close.  They provide people with an emotional outlet that comes with no lasting consequences.  But they are also just a portion of the way we experience the world.  As long as we remember their role in our lives, they are a great escape and place to invest ourselves.  They are fun, and we should remember that.

Now that the Cubs can ascend to the level of just another successful big market team, I looked into the championship, pennant, and playoff droughts of each MLB franchise, as well as their playoff runs within the last generation or so (1992-present) and last decade (2007-present). What is striking is how much the Wild Card era truly established some level of parity within the game, while simultaneously creating a number of one-and-done teams. Yet, it seems that championship teams in general have relatively long cycles in baseball, and dynasties truly are rare.

Even more interesting is the fact that many teams share exactly the same drought following a World Series appearance — the White Sox and Astros are both 11 seasons removed from their pennants; the Reds and Athletics are both 26 years removed from their pennants; San Diego, Atlanta, and the Mets each have their pennant drought defined by the dynasty Yankees (18, 17, and 16 years removed, respectively). It would be interesting to study this further, to see whether MLB front offices press to build a repeat contender after their championships, instead of allowing a roster to take a more natural player development course (which clubs arguably do when they are attempting to build a contender).

Even more recently, certain franchises share the same fate: the Cardinals and Rangers and Phillies and Yankees are both equally removed from their last pennants now, and the Rays have not returned to the World Series since the Phillies dismissed them. There was also an incredible run of one-time champions that are already quite far removed from those trophies (the Marlins, Angels, and Diamondbacks).

If one defines a player development cycle as roughly eight-to-ten years — assembling a core of players that theoretically have overlapping reserve rights (six-to-seven years) and supplemental free agency contracts and other trades — there are currently 20 MLB franchises that are more than one player development cycle removed from a pennant, with four of those teams also experiencing playoffs droughts that are longer than one player development cycle. The pennant droughts should not necessarily be surprising, as even if pennants were equally distributed throughout each league, an average drought would be roughly 15 years; but the playoff droughts are quite stunning, given the rate at which the Wild Card era is supposed to recycle clubs and literally increase each club’s chance at making the playoffs. In this light, the Brewers’ five season playoff drought is only half of one player development cycle (approximately), which is interesting because it reframes the current rebuilding effort (a quick and effective rebuild could return the Brewers to the playoffs within one player development cycle, which will make a worthwhile effort of reevaluating former President Doug Melvin’s tenure).

One could argue that another measure of success for the Wild Card era is the distribution of teams that are within three years of their previous playoff appearance. Theoretically, the new Wild Card arrangement should ensure each club a chance at making the playoffs once every three years, and the old arrangement ensured one appearance within every four year span (theoretically). In terms of actual development, 21 MLB clubs successfully fall within that range, which means that one might actually be able to explain the failures of other clubs as outliers. On the other hand, a revenue-based argument will readily point out that a handful of the playoff starved franchises (including the Brewers) that fall outside of those three- or four-year Wild Card cycles are among the game’s smallest television markets. MLB needs total revenue sharing, and this is another measure of that need. Of course, the Wild Card has shown some success in redistributing playoff spots, so the last generation of MLB policy is not a complete failure.

Judging the last decade and previous 25 years of playoff appearances, it is interesting how the Cubs narrative flips. The Lakeview Nine were one of the Top Ten successes in the MLB, both in terms of the last 25 years and the last decade. People will say what they like of pennant and championship droughts, but a 25-year-old Cubs fan has now seen six playoff appearances and a World Series title, easily making their experience one of the most successful and privileged within the MLB.

Brewers fans now have a new scope on their narrative of failure for the franchise. The club is among the ten longest playoff droughts (#7), among the most playoff starved franchises within the last decade and generation (#6), among the longest pennant droughts (#4), and among the longest Championship droughts (#5). This places the goal of the rebuilding effort in clear focus: the Brewers cannot simply produce another set of one-and-done contenders, but must find a way to cycle talent to break their current franchise trends. With the Collective Bargaining Agreement between MLB and MLBPA in sight, Brewers fans should demand their ownership group fight for full revenue sharing, which will go a long way in helping Milwaukee compete with largest markets for playoff shares. While we fight for these gains, we will have our own narratives of losing to sort through: here we are, with Cleveland, Texas, Houston, D.C., San Diego, and Seattle, the new lovable losers. Which of these clubs will break their drought first?